Now and Then

Something changed this week. As the days passed, each became part of a snowballing narrative about critics that seemed to me to portend a future less than bright. The New York Critics pandered to the Oscar horse race and ended up muffing the whole deal, losing their one chance a year to go out on a ...

They’re talking about a switchblade. If the murder weapon in question is one of a kind, linking the young defendant to his father’s death, they can return a guilty sentence — and the mandatory capital punishment — in mere minutes. "But what if it isn’t?" Juror...

In his “Now and Then” column this week, Matt Brennan examines two visionary directors’ takes on the end of the world as we know it — controversial Dane Lars von Trier’s Melancholia (on VOD now, in theaters Friday) and Paul Thomas Anderson’s sprawling 1999 classic ...

With a couple of superb new indies making well-deserved waves, Matt Brennan’s “Now and Then” column pulls extra duty this week by taking on two double features for the price of one: Margin Call vs. Wall Street, and Weekend vs. Before Sunset. Trailers below:

With the debate about its Oscar chances heating up and the film now available on DVD and Blu-ray, Matt Brennan’s “Now and Then” column this week revisits Terrence Malick’s Palme d’Or-winning The Tree of Life. The Tree of Life marks director Terrence Malick’s fifth feature in the 38 years since his debut, Badlands. It’s an output that might seem thin at first glance: Woody Allen, in the same period, directed 40 (!) films, some of which (Annie Hall, Husbands and Wives) deserve to be saddled with the word “classic.” But Mailck’s genius — and, watching The Tree of Life again, I think that’s a fair word to use — can’t be seen in traditional terms....

Seeing that the Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded last week, to Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer, Matt Brennan got to thinking: What if there were a Nobel Prize for Film? This week’s “Now and Then” column revels in some of the possibilities. Check out the trailers and post your own picks in the c...

On a weekend in which the multiplex was mainly a man’s world, Matt Brennan's "Now and Then" column this week focuses on news from the small screen. With Bridesmaids now available on DVD and a flurry of funny women hitting network TV, he got to wondering: are we in a golden age of women in comedy? Trailers below:I know. You already have seven problems with this column and all you’ve read is the teaser. So let’s slow down and lay out some of the assumptions I’m working with here: first, that women are funny, and not only to other women, despite what Christopher Hitchens might have to say on the subject; and second, that I recognize there are pr...